Vanished in Vermont

In my previous entry, I mentioned a series of apparent disappearances that were reported to have happened in or around Bennington, Vermont, USA, in the late 1940s and early 1950s. From among those disappearances, the case of Paula Welden who vanished on December 1, 1946, is often presented as being the most "mysterious" of them all. It certainly was the most widely discussed of the cases - and with good reason. But after reading Paul Begg's detailed account of the story (taken from his book Into Thin Air), I have the feeling that Paula Welden's case was more likely a "perfect crime" than any sort of "paranormal" event.

You can read about it here - including a very precise timeline of the events leading to her disappearance - and make up your own mind.

Unlike James Telford (see the previous entry) - who disappeared three years to the day after Paula's disappearance - the actual existence and identity of Paula Welden (or Weldon) is established beyond doubt. She was the daughter of a well-to-do family, her father being a well-known designer of fancy household utensils; and she was eighteen - "neither a child not yet an adult", as Begg puts it very well. And, as many adolescents on the threshold of adulthood, she had certain psychological "issues" (not to mention probably raging hormones) - nothing out of the ordinary (but what is "ordinary", in the first place?), but perhaps enough for her thoughts and plans to have been far beyond what those close to her might have suspected. She could have been leading a "double life". If that is so - and we may never find out - there is no way of ruling out an unpredictable drastic reaction from whomever she was involved with.

Perfect crimes do exist.
But was Paula Welden's disappearance one of them?
You tell me.

Be it as it may, a scenario based on a "double life" seems unlikely in the cases of the other people who went missing in and around Bennington, Vermont - although their individual circumstances may not preclude foul play. The only thing they seem to have in common is the season of their disappearance: all of the people who went missing in Vermont during the years 1946 - 1950 disappeared in the months of October, November, or early December.

From among them, the most mysterious - along with Mr. Telford's alleged disappearance - is the case of Frieda Langer, 53, who disappeared on October 28, 1950 (two weeks after the alleged disappearance of small boy, Paul Jepson, 8, who is said to have vanished on October 12, 1950).

Frieda was on a hiking trip with her cousin, Herbert Elsner. According to him, Frieda fell into a stream and told her cousin to wait for her as she ran off the half mile back to their family's camping site to change into dry clothes. He waited, but she did not return... ever.
Elsner went to the camping site to inquire after her, and found out that, if she did arrive, the other family members (I have not yet established how many were there, or their identity) had not seen her. In fact, nobody saw Frieda again... until May 12, 1951, when her body was found in an open area where it should not have been missed during the extensive searches (on the day of the disappearance and then on November 5, 7, 11 and 12 of the same year, involving more than 300 military, police, firemen and volunteers).
Even more disturbingly, according to some accounts, the body is said to have looked very "fresh", as if she had just passed away "from fright".

Frieda is said to have been quite familiar with the area; and the camping site was only a few hundred metres from the stream into which she is said to have fallen. And apparently there is little doubt that the search for her was thorough indeed.

One of the - seemingly - most rational explanations for the "Bennington triangle" disappearances is that the people who vanished accidentally fell into wells.
That would - again, seemingly - explain why the disappearances only happened in the autumn/winter months: the time when the woods are covered with fallen leaves.
But it does not explain the reappearance of Frieda Langer's body - or the fact that, after 1950, the vanishings stopped.

Was there a serial killer, as some suggested?
Considering the evidence, such a theory seems highly unlikely.

Or were there some other forces at play?

There was some mention of a huge rock in the area that the local native American population, so it was said, diligently avoided... But I am yet to find the origin of the mention or the "legend" itself (when I do, I'll post it here).

Whatever it was, it stopped after Langer's disappearance, in the autumn of 1950.
People investigating - or just snooping around - the area ever since are yet to experience anything out of the ordinary.

Or so they say...

Here is a Bennington-related entry from a lovely blog that seems to indicate that the... ehm, spirits of Vermont may not yet be as restful as they are claimed to be. ;)

The Disappearing Drunkard

***

The Vanishing Point

There is an interesting thread going on at ATS right now, which naturally reminded me of a popular »time slip« story, known in several variants.

The most famous one speaks of a David Lang of Gallatin, Tennessee.

According to the story, on September 23, 1880, Lang was walking across the grounds of his farm to meet Judge August Peck who was approaching his farm in a horse and buggy. Lang's wife, Chanel, was supposedly watching him walk towards the judge. And then, the story goes, Lang vanished mid-step - in full view of the judge, his wife, the two children, and the judge's brother-in-law. The ground was searched in case he had fallen into a concealed hole, but no hole - or any trace of Lang - was found.

Some variants of the story add that Lang's children later called out to him, and heard a "disembodied voice calling as if from a great distance".
Personally, I find much more interesting and compelling the version that says that the spot where he had vanished was later found to be overgrown with exceptionally lush green grass: a sign that insects would not touch it.

However, research shows that the "David Lang" story probably originated as an article: "How Lost Was My Father?" published by journalist Stuart Palmer in Fate magazine (nro. 40, July 1953, pp. 75-85). Palmer claimed that he had been told the story by Lang's daughter. But no trace of David Lang or his family, including his apparent daughter, was ever found in any records.

The entire article was later determined to be a hoax likely inspired by the short story "The Difficulties of Crossing a Field" by Ambrose Bierce, collected in his book Can Such Things Be? (1909).

The story - as a similar one, involving a Oliver Larch (or Lurch, or Lerch) from Indiana - has since become a popular urban legend.

However, there is something about »urban legends« that self-proclaimed skeptics (and let's not even mention the so-called »debunkers« - a name that is as obnoxious and vulgar as the mentality of some of the individuals who fall into this category) seem to ignore: many legends, including »urban« ones, bespeak a wider reality, a wider experience of a phenomenon. In other words, even if the specific data – people's names, places, time of the occurrence – aren't factual, certain stories grow into »legends« because people have the actual or instinctive, intuitive experience that such things are indeed possible and have occurred.

Furthermore, there are disappearances that seem perfectly genuine – and they haven't been solved.

One such story speaks of a Mr. James Telford (also reported as "Tedford" and "Tetford"), an ex-soldier who lived in the Soldier's Home in Bennington, Vermont, in the USA.
He is supposed to have been fiercely against »airy fairy« stories and allegedly did not believe in anything »supernatural«. (Just how people knew this – and who were they - I don't know, although I assume this piece of information came from his relatives. I have yet to found any direct testimony.)

According to his family, on December 1, 1949, Mr. Telford, age 65, was on a bus, returning home from Saint Albans, Vermont. There were 14 other passengers on the bus. They are said to have all testified to seeing him on the bus, asleep in his seat. But when the bus reached Bennington, Telford was nowhere to be found. His luggage and bus timetable were found on the bus, testifying to his presence (or somebody's who had his belongings, at any rate). But Mr. Telford himself was not found – ever. It was as if he had vanished into thin air.

I've always thought that his disappearance might have been explained somehow, because the sad fact is that older people tend to become less »visible« to the world. In other words, people pay much less attention to older people and – perhaps – even tend to expect (or discount) certain patterns of behaviour based on a stereotypical perception of the elderly.

Still, it does sound odd that none, not one, of the 14 alleged witnesses would have noticed his getting off the bus earlier – or missing it altogether (after putting his luggage on the bus) - if that were the case. Besides, that still wouldn't explain why Mr. Telford was not found later.

I have searched the Familysearch website for the mysterious Mr. Telford (also the variants "Tedford" and "Tetford"), but found nothing relevant (although there was in Vermont a Mr. James Telfer who, judging by his age, could have been our Mr. Telford's father.)

However, this doesn't mean much. First of all, the name could've been distorted or misspelled – either in the story (very likely) or in the filed documents themselves (oh yes – it happens much more often than you might think). I even searched for »Thetford« – again, found nothing – but then gave it a rest, because, being a genealogist myself, I knew how futile such a search could be.

What makes this story even more compelling is the eerie fact that it belongs to a seeming cluster of disappearances centered in the area of Bennington, Vermont. They happened in the late 1940s and early 1950s - and, so it seems, only in autumn/winter time.

But more on that next time.